Japan holds first world championship of aggressive garbage assortment

Japan on Wednesday held the primary world championship of a singular homegrown competitors of garbage assortment.

As many as 21 international locations participated within the sport that features scouting for empty cans, bits of plastic, and cigarettes on the streets of Tokyo, with Britain lifting the primary Spogomi World Cup.

Launched in 2008, the identify is derived from two phrases “sport” and “gomi” – Japanese for trash. Spogomi founder Kenichi Mamitsuka used to choose up litter on his morning runs and realised that setting targets might flip it right into a enjoyable exercise, reported AFP.

“When you type nationwide spogomi associations, my ambition is that it might grow to be an Olympic demonstration occasion,” he instructed the wire company.

The rivals, which included contributors from international locations just like the US, Australia, and France, collected a complete of 548kg of litter, in response to organizers.

Armed with gloves, steel tongs and trash baggage, every group was made up of three gamers who had been awarded factors primarily based on the quantity and sorts of trash they picked up.

Accumulating trash from non-public properties was not allowed, and the gamers got 20 minutes after every trash-picking session to kind litter in numerous classes together with burnable waste, recyclable plastic bottles, steel cans, cigarette butts and others.

“It’s irritating as a result of we wished to win this occasion,” Tomoe Takahashi, a member of the Japanese group from Niigata Prefecture, was quoted as saying by The Mainichi. “However I hope extra folks around the globe might be taken with environmental points.”

The UK earned the highest spot with 9,046.1 factors for gathering a complete of 57.27kg of trash.

The second World Cup is scheduled to be held in Tokyo in 2025.